DOOLITTLE’S WARBIRDS

AS THE SKY TURNS LAVENDER-PINK at the close of this gorgeous summer day, I spy two birds flitting across Lake Murray’s shimmery waters. Then two more, then eight, and fifteen. Soon the sky is filled with them: purple martins returning to their rookery on 12-acre Doolittle Island (officially named Lunch Island)—one of North America’s largest purple martin sanctuaries, seasonal home to as many as one million birds. More than seven decades ago, the island entertained another kind of bird—silvery sleek B-25s that bombed this terrain as part of a secret training mission during World War II.

Jayne Baker, the public relations manager at Lake Murray Country Tourism Board, hints at a connection between the bombing practice and the fact that the birds are drawn to this island. “It may be that something